Ready for a Ruby on Rails Developer Role? Read This...

Whether you have recently finished your education or are hoping to make a career switch, securing a job as a Ruby on Rails Developer can potentially be quite lucrative, with many qualified professionals achieving salaries well over the $100,000 mark. But, as with any IT position, a specific set of skills is required to be successful. Here are some of the competencies you must possess if you want to secure a Ruby on Rails position.

Ruby Skills

As a foundation, you need to have a thorough understanding of Ruby. Most commonly, this involves a substantial level of proficiency in syntax, including how to create loops, classes, and conditional statements using the language, as well as object-oriented programming (OOP).

Ruby largely relies on OOP, so having knowledge of concepts like classes, composition, inheritance, and objects is vital. Additionally, you need to understand blocks, procs, and lambdas, including when to use them and how they differ.

Ruby on Rails Skills

Ruby on Rails specific competencies are also critical. You’ll need to be familiar with the MVC paradigm, including which layer manages what and how your application needs to be structured. Experience with ERB or Haml is also important as these are the two most commonly used templating and viewing systems for Ruby on Rails.

For unit testing, it’s beneficial to know Rspec. And, since Ruby on Rails is frequently used as an API provider, grasping API concepts, as well as JSON formatting, will help you get ahead.

REST and HTTP protocols are also valuable, as many web-based applications operate as a REST app. Your knowledge of HTTP protocols can be more surface level, though more in-depth expertise can separate you from the pack.

Other Basic Skills

There are particular frontend and database skills that are useful to Ruby on Rails developers, so having an intermediate understanding of the systems and concepts is wise. This includes HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS on the frontend, as well as SQL, PostgreSQL or MySQL, and NoSQL databases.

Tools Knowledge

Certain tools are very common in these positions. Git is fundamental to code management, so understanding how to do basic operations, like create a new branch, and pull and push the code is essential. Being familiar with deployment mechanisms, like Capistrano, Docker, and Heroku, is also incredibly useful.

While not specific to Ruby on Rails, almost every IT professional needs to understand basic project and ticket management systems. Anything from Asana to Github to Trello can be helpful as a starting point, as most of the concepts behind these solutions are quite similar.

As you can see, it takes a lot of knowledge to be a Ruby on Rails developer. But, by dedicating time and energy to increase your level of competency, you will likely see your hard work rewarded.

If you are interested in landing a Ruby on Rails developer position, the professionals at The Armada Group can connect you with some of the area’s most innovative and exciting employers. Contact us today to learn more about our available jobs.